Chapter 7 - Who is Carrie Morton?

Chapter 7: Chapter 7 - Who is Carrie Morton?

He racked his brain. He didn’t know any Carries. He barely knew any women at all, which was half his problem.

[You’ve met her, host. You knew her as Samantha.]

Jesse went still.

[The woman who lured you into the alley. Samantha was an alias. Her real name is Carrie Morton.]

’The woman who set me up to get robbed is in my harem?’

[Correct.]

’How? Why?’

[You found her attractive. You spent money on her. And she came back for you.]

Jesse thought about the cheap, sweet perfume. The soft hand on his arm. ’Don’t die on me.’

He didn’t know what to do with that. He was still turning it over when the system chimed again.

[Ding!]

[Harem Unlocked Bonus: 3 Lucky Draws!]

[Do you want to draw?]

[YES] [NO]

Jesse decided Carrie Morton could wait.

’Yes.’

[Congratulations! You have drawn: Driving Mastery!]

[Driving Mastery: The host can operate any vehicle with expert precision. Car, motorcycle, ship, plane, helicopter. If it moves, you can drive it.]

Jesse blinked. He’d driven exactly one car in his life, his mother’s old Corolla, and he’d scraped the side mirror against a parking garage pillar on his second day.

’Anything? Like a fighter jet?’

[If it moves, you can drive it.]

’Okay. Okay, that’s cool.’

[Drawing second prize...]

[Congratulations! You have drawn: Porsche Panamera Turbo S!]

[The vehicle is parked outside St. Nicholas Hospital.]

Jesse snorted. ’Sure it is.’

Then something cold and heavy settled in his pocket.

He reached into the pocket of the hospital gown, then remembered hospital gowns didn’t have pockets. He looked down. His jeans were folded on the chair beside the bed, and something was weighing down the front pocket.

He reached over, wincing, and pulled out a sleek black key fob with the Porsche crest stamped on it.

Jesse turned it over in his hands three times.

’This is a joke. This has to be a joke.’

[It is not a joke, host.]

He didn’t believe it. He held the key and still didn’t believe it. A man with a system talking in his head, two hundred grand in his account, and somehow a car key was the thing his brain refused to accept.

[Drawing third prize...]

[Congratulations! You have drawn: Flawless Models!]

[Flawless Models: A modeling agency based in Manhattan. Ownership has been transferred to the host. All legal documents have been processed.]

Jesse read the words three times.

A modeling agency.

He worked at a luxury fashion brand where people called him atrocious to his face. And now he owned the company that supplied faces to that industry.

A slow, crooked smile spread across his face.

’Andrew, you have no idea.’

He looked back at his banking app. Two hundred thousand dollars.

It was more money than he’d ever seen. But Andrew Hyland’s family was worth hundreds of millions. The Goldfinches had one of the biggest real estate companies in the country.

Two hundred grand was a start. It wasn’t enough.

He switched back to Lustre. Natalia was still live, still glowing, still thanking Anonymous12 every few minutes.

Jesse opened the gift menu again.

$50,000.

Send.

Another crown spun across the screen. Natalia screamed, actually screamed, then slapped a hand over her mouth and laughed in disbelief.

"Are you serious? Anonymous12, are you actually serious right now?"

[Ding!]

[You spent $50,000. 10X Critical Hit! Earned $500,000! The money has been transferred to account XXX-XXX-XXX.]

Jesse’s hands were shaking now. ’Holy shit. Holy shit.’

He went to send another gift, but his thumb, clumsy from painkillers and adrenaline, hit the wrong corner of the screen.

The app logged him out.

"No, no, no..." Jesse muttered, fumbling to log back in.

[Host, any money spent from this point will not be multiplied.]

Jesse froze. ’What? Why?’

[A woman who has no affection for the host can only receive two multiplied gifts per session. Once you left the session, it ended. Natalia Meadows currently has zero affection for you. She is only grateful and curious but really doesn’t care.]

’Zero?’

[Zero.]

Jesse lay back against the pillow and laughed quietly at the ceiling. Of course. Even with a cheat code, the universe still found a way to remind him that Natalia didn’t give a damn about him.

’So if she actually liked me...’

[Affection unlocks additional gifting privileges. Details will be revealed as you progress.]

Jesse filed that away.

He opened his bank app one more time.

[Account Balance: $650,000.00]

Six hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

Yesterday morning, he’d had two grand to his name. Last night, he’d had zero. Now he had more money than his mother had seen in the last thirteen years of her life combined.

His eyes stung.

’I wish you were here, Mom.’

[Ding!]

[Spending Milestone Reached! You have received 2 Lucky Draws!]

Jesse wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. ’Draw.’

[Congratulations! You have drawn: Untraceable Account!]

[Untraceable Account: No individual, institution, or government agency can view the true balance of the host’s accounts. The host controls what others see.]

Jesse sat up a little straighter. That one mattered more than the car.

His father’s name was a lightning rod. The second anyone noticed Jamie Byrne’s son suddenly sitting on six figures, the press would start asking where the money came from. The FBI would start asking if Daddy was sending it.

Now, nobody would ever know unless he wanted them to.

[Drawing second prize...]

[Congratulations! You have drawn: One-Time Full Recovery!]

[One-Time Full Recovery: All of the host’s injuries will heal completely. This effect can only be used once.]

[Recovery will begin while the host sleeps.]

Jesse barely had time to read it before a warm heaviness rolled over him, starting in his chest and spreading out to his fingertips. His eyelids drooped.

The last thing he felt was the ache in his ribs fading away.

---

Jesse woke to sunlight leaking through the blinds.

He sat up on instinct, braced for the pain, and felt nothing.

He pressed a hand to his stomach where the brute had kicked him over and over. Nothing. He touched his lip. Smooth. He flexed his fingers, rolled his shoulders, took the deepest breath he’d taken in weeks.

Nothing hurt.

Jesse let out a short, stunned laugh.

He swung his legs off the bed, grabbed his jeans and his shirt from the chair, and dressed quickly behind the curtain. The Porsche key sat heavy in his palm.

He needed to see it. He needed to see it with his own eyes before he let himself believe any of this.

He pulled the curtain aside and almost walked straight into two uniformed police officers.

The taller of the two, a broad man with a graying mustache, looked him up and down, then glanced at the clipboard in his hand like he was double-checking he had the right guy.

"Jesse Byrne?"

Jesse’s grip tightened around the key.

"That’s me."

"NYPD. We’d like to ask you a few questions." The officer’s eyes lingered on Jesse’s face, on the skin that should have been bruised purple and wasn’t. "About what happened to you last night."